


the repeated image of the lover destroyed

by QQI25



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 11:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13703112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QQI25/pseuds/QQI25
Summary: Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling outYou will be alone always and then you will die.This is a fic based on "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out", a poem by Richard Siken.





	the repeated image of the lover destroyed

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This work is based on the poem "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out" by Richard Siken. It's super duper lovely and beautiful and poetic and clever and I love it so much. And I know the story is based on the poem, but I'm really proud of it. 
> 
> https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48158/litany-in-which-certain-things-are-crossed-out
> 
> If it's not clear, this is from the perspective of (a very poetic) Wade! And it's about his relationship with Peter!

We meet in the autumn as the leaves change and everything else follows suit. It's lust at first sight with you; I'm not gonna lie. I don't bother with prettying things up, because there's no aspect of me that's pretty. I know I will never be your perfect fantasy. Even with all the thoughts swirling furiously around my brain, there's a main one that stands out. _You will be alone always and then you will die._ It's the only constant truth. 

I wish I had more to give you. I wish there was more than this sad desperation to be with you. I wish I could offer more than a mere apology for coming into your life and defiling and corrupting you, letting you get used to and start liking me, leaving you behind to piece it all back together when I realised the impact I'd had. I wish I could give you the better story you deserve and desire. 

So let's start over. We meet in the city. Hope comes along for me when I see you. Behind hope comes the disaster. I can tell you think I'm the catalyst. Doesn't everyone? But I'm not. I'm not the catalyst and I'm not the reward. I'm just . . . human. I'm just a person that you think can waltz through your life and make your fantasies become your future. Of course, I'm the opposite of cupid. So of course I accept the consequences. And of course I catch up to you and back you into the metaphorical corner. But that comes later. 

I used to think I was the catalyst. I also used to think I was the reward, handsome and ready for someone to whisk me off my feet, but someone who knows they're loved and significant can look in the mirror and feel love; I look in the mirror and feel disgust. I'm a monster trying to stay afloat and all the while leaving a trail of disasters behind me. 

Okay. So I _am_ the catalyst. Big deal. You're still a hero. You're handsome! You shoot webs! You _save people_! What more could you want? What more could you need? I make you tacos. I follow you on patrol, talk to you in near-empty apartments and ramble to you on rooftops. Are you even listening anymore? Am I speaking to a wall? To the chill in the nighttime air? Has the apartment finally become empty? Have you dissolved away into nothingness and memories? 

I want to be able to do something right for once. I want to make your fantasies your future, your dreams your reality. When you close your eyes, you think you hear the ringing of your phone. When you open them, you're staring out in your sparse apartment that seems to be staring back. When you close your eyes, you see the scene that caused the nth fracture in the divide between us. You see red, you see glass being swallowed. Hello. I'm sorry you had to see that. I'm sorry for the conversation we had at the bottom of the stairwell. I'm sorry I said what I said and what I meant and it was too much for you. I take what I want and what I remember and shape it into a me that's loved, a me that _loves_. When you are with that me, I am not a bad person. I'm sorry. This is me taking that back. This is me taking it _all_ back. This is the picture that replays over and over, never for you to see, of the man who loved and wasn't loved back, wasn't loved enough, destroying himself a thousand times over. 

I cross it all out, bury it underneath. Hands that shake only under the cover of darkness. Secrets I _almost_ manage to hide from even myself. Here is a home. Here are the happy times, the filled-to-the-brim-with-love times, even though we are undeserving of that. Even though _I_ am undeserving of that. 

When you close your eyes, you think you hear the ringing of the phone. When you open them, you're washing your hands and scrubbing your face in the bathroom of someone you don't know. You're 20 minutes away from me. I'm smothered by darkness. It follows me to what can barely be considered a living room, and the yard, and the back of the car even as lights zoom past. It follows me to the airport bathroom, where it drowns out the flushing toilets, and sits at the edges of the bright, cheap lighting. I do not know my body anymore, do not feel connected to it. My hands look weird, my face unfamiliar, my feet too far below me. And then I'm on a plane, my window seat giving me a perfect view of the wing, the light a view of my complimentary flight peanuts. 

When I get back home, I hit the rooftops and you're there at our spot waiting serenely with a smile that's way too kind for me. It scares me and fills me with guilt. We go to your place, your room with your notes scattered all about, and your desk and your bed and your dresser, where we take our masks off. I slip up and forget that I'm speaking aloud when I absently murmur in a quiet voice out of character for me that _this feels like home_. You don't say anything. 

Instead, you lead us to the subway. It's quiet, with only a handful of people sharing our space. We sit in silence next to each other and watch the buildings fly past, see the seemingly blinking lights. I break down there, in the train car. I start sobbing. Can't remember the last time I did that. I know I'll lose you. The story can't go any other way for me. But I'm terrified of that moment all the same. When I work up the nerve and calm down enough to look at you, I see that you're crying as well. But you're still wearing a smile filled with adoration and concern and that breaks me down further. 

I turn away then, and your hand comes up to gently cup my face and turn my head so I'm looking at you. Your touch is feather-light, like I'm eggshells, like I'm delicate china. You bring your forehead to rest against mine, and it comes out as a whisper when you say _anything you want_ and it'd be cryptic to any other but I understand what you mean. 

_Anything I want_ is too broad and too powerful of a statement. Build me a city. Build me another one. Name them both Jerusalem. But we've already been there, and it was barren in terms of what we were seeking. So then build me a new story. Write me a new life where I'm not so fucked up, where I have a chance with someone like you. It would take about 70 minutes for me to tell you about all that humans have wanted and _how_ humans have wanted, but we don't have that kind of time. 

Forget who the catalyst is, leave behind all you own. We'll go to another breaking point of mine then, the moment I realise I can't let this go on any longer, can't keep tainting you, and speak ugly, harsh words. We stop meeting up. I think it'll make me happy to know I'm saving you from me, and it doesn't. It doesn't. It never does, and it never will. I've always been too selfish for that. And I know you're mad at me. I guess I've always been sort of a masochist. All I can think about are the good times, and the undeniably happy times, and the filled-to-the-brim-with-love times. I'm sorry. 

I talk to empty apartments and ramble unseeingly on rooftops. I am still learning forgiveness, still learning to be able to _seek comfort_ in forgiveness. It's hard when all I've ever known is self-hatred. I leave the unbiased truth laid out in front of the jury to decide. The jury is still out. 

When I think of who we were, I know I should be picturing bad times, but I'm not. We rarely had bad times. Instead, I see us sitting on the edge of rooftops, legs dangling carelessly, as we talk. I see us sitting on the floor barely leaned up against the couch and each other as we're near tears from laughter. I see us sitting on the bench in the train car, your head on my shoulder, my head resting lightly on yours. I don't think I realised 'til now that I've been starving. I've been leaving space for you in my life this whole time and I haven't realised. 

That night, I finally work up the nerve to go back to my apartment, and find you in the kitchen. You're perched on the counter, legs swinging aimlessly, a calm look like you're somewhere else. When you see me, your face breaks out into a grin. I'm frozen, and your grin slips into a soft smile full of adoration as you slide gracefully off the counter and cross the kitchen to me. You envelop me in your arms and I feel boneless when you speak the words _welcome home_ into the crook of my neck. Home is on every rooftop and subway bench and in every alley and apartment with you. Home _is you_.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if it seems choppy at times!! This is as good as it's gonna get.


End file.
